Washington (CNN) - The war of words over how the U.S. should approach potential military strikes in Syria will only intensify in the coming days as President Barack Obama asks Congress to officially weigh in.

After he and top officials in his administration outlined evidence behind their claim that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a chemical attack that killed 1,400 and injured 3,000 earlier this month, Obama's call Saturday for congressional authorization to strike Syria surprised Washington but was applauded by members on both sides of the aisle.FULL POST

(CNN) - As we count down to the re-launch of Crossfire, our new hosts are looking back at amazing moments from the program’s 23-year history.

Newt Gingrich shows a night in 1988 when figures from the Kennedy and Bush eras debate U.S. defense. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and about-to-be Vice President Dan Quayle were in the Crossfire discussing the Soviet Union’s military defense capabilities in the final days of the socialist state.

Crossfire returns to CNN on September 16, airing weekdays at 6:30pm ET.

CNN's POLITICAL GUT CHECK | for August 30, 2013 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle

ALL EYES ON SYRIA: OBAMA MAKES HIS CASE; SAYS SYRIAN ATROCITIES THREATEN U.S. NATIONAL INTEREST: “This kind of attack is a challenge to the world. We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale. This kind of attack threatens our national security interests by violating well established international norms against the use of chemical weapons by further threatening friends and allies of ours in the region, like Israel and Turkey, and Jordan and it increases the risk that chemical weapons will be used in the future and fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us.”

OBAMA SAYS HE “MEANT WHAT HE SAID”: “So, I have said before, and I meant what I said that, the world has an obligation to make sure that we maintain the norm against the use of chemical weapons. …FULL POST

Washington (CNN) - Declaring himself "war-weary" but determined to hold Syria accountable for using banned chemical weapons, President Barack Obama said Friday he was considering a limited response to what U.S. intelligence assessed with "high confidence" as a Syrian attack that killed more than 1,400 people.

A full transcript of this Cabinet Room remarks follows. Omitted from the transcript are remarks by the presidents of Estonia, Luthuania and Latvia, with whom the president was meeting.

OBAMA: Well, obviously, I'm - I'm very grateful to have my fellow presidents here, as well as the vice president. Before I begin, I want to say a few words about the situation in
Syria. As you've seen, today we've released our unclassified assessment detailing with high confidence that the Syrian regime carried out a chemical weapons attack that killed well over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children. This follows the horrific images that shocked us all.FULL POST

(CNN) – A carefully worded statement from Liz Cheney Friday explained the Wyoming Senate candidate wasn't supportive of same-sex marriage, despite having a sister who married her longtime partner in Washington, D.C., last year.

"I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage," Cheney wrote. "I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states, and by the people in the states, not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves."FULL POST

Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) - Since the elections of 2010, when a tide of grassroots fervor swept through the state and vaulted a bumper crop of fresh-faced conservative leaders into office, South Carolina's Republican political establishment has been drastically reshaped.

The state's governor, Nikki Haley, is a 41-year -old Indian-American. Tim Scott is the first African-American to represent the state in the United States Senate.

Washington (CNN) - Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Syrian officials made preparations for chemical weapons use for three days prior to the August 21 attack, and that rockets were launched from areas controlled by the Syrian regime and landed in areas controlled by the opposition or contested.

Kerry said the American intelligence community has "high confidence" in what he called evidence and facts that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons, adding that "the questions is what are we ... in the world going to do about it."